Today we are living in an era where these topics are no longer taboo. It seems we are all open to having the uncomfortable conversations we once avoided and learning from each other’s life experiences. In between my procrastination, I fed myself on a diet of autobiographies, to not only build up the courage to finish mine, but also to understand the different styles of writing a memoir and the deliverance. I educated myself by reading these memoirs and the art of writing them and still regularly read autobiographies to this day. How long did it take you to complete your first book from the first idea to release? Before joining digital arts platfrom WhyNow as creative director last year, Janet Lee worked for the BBC, where she was the editor of programmes including Imagine and The Culture Show and a producer on Desert Island Discs. Stewart Lee Wherever I lived, my care experience included libraries and reading, and without them I wouldn’t be here,” says Rosie Canning, who was put into care in London at six weeks. “Books were a way to escape from the madness around me, be that foster care, family, or residential homes. Libraries were my hallowed space, and librarians were kind guardians who gave me orphan tales.” Now, as part of her PhD, Canning is writing her own novel, entitled Hiraeth, about a 16-year-old orphan leaving a children’s home in the mid-1970s. Meera Mistry

As Vessels, Browne exhibits an unhinged personality that fits with his internal struggle to simultaneously love and hate his ex-wife, the mother that took his children from him when he simply aspired to change the world into something worth growing up in. That’s one opinion anyway. It isn’t difficult to empathise with the alternative – Grace’s plight, wife of a radical that kills for his beliefs, manifest in the carnal need to protect her children from their monstrous father. Both sides of the story are credibly acted out on stage, a power play where each actor jostles for the position of moral superiority. The individuals are indeed committed; Grace and supportive crutch Easley at times forget that they are held at gun point, such is their moral obligation to exert their supremacist views. Why do you think this book is significantforaudiences to read? What do you hope people will take from it? The 51-year-old says his life changed when his mum was diagnosed with schizophrenia (Image: MyLondon) This is a great opportunity to celebrate our achievements,” says Keith Saha of the Foundling Museum project. “A lot of care-experienced people will also measure success by how we’re feeling internally, how we manage our mental health and wellbeing, and not always what we’re achieving externally.” Moved into a children’s home aged six, Saha then went to live with adoptive parents in Merseyside the following year – a complex but positive experience for which he feels “lots of gratitude”. Now he works as a theatre-maker working with young and emerging artists, many of whom are also care-experienced. Barrie SharpeI must have been around 7 or 8 years old when this photo was taken. I had the world on my shoulders already at that point," Stanley reflects. "You can tell from my eyes and my facial expression that I was an unhappy camper and wore the thousand-yard-stare at such an early age. I felt switched off from the world and distant." An intelligent and sensitive child, Browne’s narrative saw him descend into crime, heroin addiction and gang life. Although I was born and raised in London, I would say I'm very connected to my own culture as a British Pakistani who is fluent in Urdu. Born in Wigan to an Ethiopian mother, Lemn Sissay was placed in foster care as a baby, and sent aged 12 to the first of a series of children’s homes. Later, while piecing together his origins, he discovered that his mother had pleaded for his return and been denied by social services. Sissay has spoken out about his care experience and its many traumas throughout his career as a poet and broadcaster. Allan Jenkins It was only when he was sent to a young offender’s institution that he slowly began to turn his life around.

When Allan Jenkins embarked on his gardening memoir Plot 29, he found himself writing about the “helplessness of seed” just three paragraphs in and was prompted to revisit his unsettled past, growing up in foster care in south Devon with his older brother Christopher. The memoir was warmly received, though Jenkins, who edits Observer Food Monthly, has mixed feelings about becoming a figurehead for care-experienced people. “Sometimes, if you’ve had my childhood, you try not to be defined by it,” he says. Richard Bramble I was fostered till the age of one and then placed with my adoptive family,” says Annalisa Toccara. “Through my lived experience of being adopted, I co-founded a mental-health organisation called Adoptee Futures, which is led by adoptees and which centres adoptees. We look at reclaiming the adoption narrative and reframing the world’s view on adoption, and also helping adult adoptees heal from their trauma.” Louise Wallwein MBE In a sea of brilliantly coloured fabrics – never has clothing seemed more important to the story we tell of ourselves – TV producer and editor Janet Lee looks particularly confident in jazzy reds, hot oranges and cheeky pinks. But don’t be fooled, she says. “If we spent long enough with each other, we’d probably all start crying. Fortunately we’re all busy people, so we have to rush off.” And suddenly they’re all gone, a fleeting crowd of one-offs, whose generosity with their time and their stories has created an indelible image. Browne's success at Yalisombo became internationally known, and the eminent leprologist Robert Cochrane, while visiting the Congo, encouraged Browne to leave behind his interest in general tropical medicine and focus entirely on leprosy studies.In addition to his accomplishments as an actor, Stanley has a passion for music and art. He is a painter and charcoal artist and has a portfolio of work. Having been a singer-songwriter for over twenty years, performing at various acoustic venues across the UK, he also has a studio recorded album on Spotify and iTunes called "Simply Stanley" (2015). Natalie Hirst spent eight years living in foster care in Greater Manchester and had a mixed experience, but her resilience helped her to develop the strength and skills to overcome many challenges. “My experience has taught me the importance of having kind, supportive adults in the lives of children in care to help them feel safe, cared for and treated like one of the family,” she says. “These experiences have shaped who I am today, an independent woman, passionate about my career and working with local authorities in Greater Manchester to ensure every young person has a voice, choice and control over decisions made about them.” Michelle Brown

Actor Stanley J. Browne sheds vital light on addiction, mental illness, and our underfunded care system in this powerful true-to-life story about male coming-of-age. It was amazing to be seen,” says Olumide Popoola about some of the social workers who helped her through care in Germany. She lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then spent a couple of years in a children’s home. Both places recognised her writing talent and helped her get work published. Now Popoola is a novelist and an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins in London. “I always feel these two years [at the children’s home] made it possible for me to be who I am today.” Janet Lee The stories I'm most proud of are ones where I can get an insight into the experiences of individuals, such as this powerful independent woman who fled Eritrea and ended up opening her own salon in Brixton. Problems with mental health not only impact the individual suffering, but also those around them. It can be devastating to witness someone struggling, but one man had to watch his own mum suffer while also dealing with his own life changing dramatically after she was diagnosed with a condition.Jenny Bagchi spent time in foster care and unregulated settings as a teenager before experiencing an abrupt end to care at 16. Becoming a young parent motivated her to return to education as an adult. She is now employed by the NHS in Greater Manchester, leading a programme to create trauma responsive communities and organisations and to improve health outcomes and opportunities across the region. She is also a trustee of the charity Pure Insight, which supports young people to have a better care-leaving experience than she did herself. Derek Owusu The issues around growing up in care don’t magically stop at 25, just because public policy stops,” says Jim Goddard, who went into care in Liverpool aged three. “They carry on, and people deal with them in various ways.” Goddard is the chair of the Care Leavers’ Association, which focuses on care leavers of all ages – it might help people access their care files, or deal with issues around social isolation. “The level of invisibility of the issues facing young people leaving care has not fundamentally altered in the past 20 years.” Akiya Henry